On April 23, the House approved, by voice vote, a resolution (H.R. 1434) designating a U.S. Postal Service facility in Springdale, Pennsylvania as the “Rachel Carson Post Office Building.”
The sponsor of the bill, Rep. Jason Altmire (D-PA), stated, “Rachel Carson is most famous for, of course, her book, Silent Spring, which was published in 1962, and it criticizes the use of pesticides, particularly DDT, but not exclusively. It is widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement, including Earth Day; [which] just over this past weekend we celebrated Earth Day all across the country while Rachel Carson is credited with the founding of that movement as well.”
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) said that as a result of her work, “We are in fact smarter in the way we look at the chemicals that bring good things to life, as I think that we once said. We don’t assume they are bad. We do test to make sure that what they do well for us is well measured against the side effects. That was a standard created as a result of Rachel Carson. We are honored to have had somebody who worked for the federal government, who published and who cared and who persevered throughout her entire life.”
